How can AI Automation Reinforce Healthcare Cybersecurity?

How can AI Automation Reinforce Healthcare Cybersecurity?

By Healthcare Tech Outlook | Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Healthcare Cybersecurity

Although AI has revolutionized healthcare by enhancing the workflows, several organizations are anxious about the incorporation of the technology in healthcare space.

FREMONT, CA:  The emerging technology has transformed the healthcare sector, enabling providers to augment patient services and enhance organizational efficiency. However, the approaches leveraged to access, store, and share the data fuelling the modern systems often lack in terms of security when compared to the advancement of technology. Most healthcare organizations fail to implement robust solutions that comply with privacy laws.

The shortage of qualified candidates has led to understaffed IT security teams in over 75 percent of healthcare organizations. Also, more than 90 percent of healthcare providers have faced data breaches in one way or the other. Cybercriminals across the world are leveraging technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), which has increased the sophistication and frequency of cyberattacks.

Although digitalization has enabled organizations to streamline processes such as patient scheduling, staff management, and patient record-keeping, it has significantly increased the cybersecurity tasks. However, the incorporation of AI can help IT departments automate their operations and efficiently counter cyberattacks. AI systems can effectively analyze, anticipate, identify, and defend against cyberattacks, viruses, malware, and other threats.

AI automation brings excellent potential to healthcare cybersecurity. Organizations can leverage the ML and deep learning capabilities to teach the systems how to resolve specific problems. The AI systems are designed to improve continuously, which will enable healthcare organizations to monitor their network activity and flag unusual behavior efficiently. It will also allow them to track anomalies in the internet traffic and locate the problems.

However, many organizations are hesitant about leveraging AI systems for cybersecurity in the healthcare space even though it is the most logical option to fight against automated cyberattacks. Intelligent automation can significantly enhance the capabilities of healthcare IT.

Healthcare organizations are seeking to implement modern device management for their Windows systems which can provide secure Azure Active Directory services incorporated with real-time anti-virus protection and security capability. It eliminates the need for multiple security solutions and enables instant deployment of automatic patches.

AI-based automation will enable analysts to focus on critical activities, including educating and training end-users regarding the active measures against cyberattacks. It will also allow analysts to leverage data analytics and enhance efficiency, workflow, and clinical quality. However, AI systems are not immune to social engineering, and hence, it is risky to utilize them for the management of sensitive patient information.

The current use case of AI systems is in healthcare cybersecurity since it is the only technology capable of maintaining pace with the attack vectors leveraged by cybercriminals. There are several vendors in the healthcare security market utilizing innovative approaches to thwart cyberattacks.

The stakes are quite high in the healthcare sector since personal health records are one of the most preferred targets for cybercriminals. As the healthcare industry expands its digital capability, its vulnerability to cyberattacks also increases. Hence, organizations must leverage the latest, innovative technologies to counter the threat of cybercriminals. There is a need to develop effective healthcare IT security workforces with the essential capabilities and skills. Also, enhanced cybersecurity awareness and educations will significantly increase the readiness of the healthcare industry when facing cyber threats.

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